The 2002 Victorian state election, held on Saturday, 30 November 2002, was for the 55th
Parliament of Victoria
The Parliament of Victoria is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of Victoria (state), Victoria that follows a Westminster System, Westminster-derived parliamentary system. It consists of the Monarchy in Australia, King, represent ...
. It was held to elect the 88 members of
Victorian
Legislative Assembly and 22 members of the 44-member
Legislative Council
A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the Brit ...
.
The
Labor
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
government led by
Premier
Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier.
A premier will normally be a head of govern ...
Steve Bracks was returned for a second term in a
landslide victory
A landslide victory is an election result in which the winning Candidate#Candidates in elections, candidate or political party, party achieves a decisive victory by an overwhelming margin, securing a very large majority of votes or seats far beyo ...
, taking 62 seats, a gain of 20. It was easily the biggest majority that Labor had ever won in Victoria, and one of Labor's best-ever performances at the state level in Australia. Additionally, it was only the third time that a Labor government had been reelected in Victoria. Labor also recorded 57.8 percent of the two-party preferred vote, their highest on record for a Victorian election. Labor also won a majority of seats in the Legislative Council for the first time in its history.
Jeff Kennett had resigned as
Liberal leader soon after his shock defeat in
1999
1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons.
Events January
* January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers.
* January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...
, and was succeeded by former Health Minister
Denis Napthine. However, Napthine was unable to get the better of Bracks, and was ousted in August 2002 by Shadow Health Minister
Robert Doyle. With just a few months before the writs were dropped, Doyle was unable to recover any significant ground. The Liberals saw their seat tally more than halved, to 17 seats — their worst result since the
1952 election.
The
Nationals (who after breaking off their
Coalition
A coalition is formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political, military, or economic spaces.
Formation
According to ''A G ...
with the Liberals rebranded themselves the 'VicNats') retained the seven seats they held from 1999.
Labor was assisted by a strong economy and by the popularity of Steve Bracks, while the Liberal Party was badly divided between the
Kroger
The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates (either directly or through its subsidiaries) supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States.
Founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cinc ...
and Kennett factions. The Liberal campaign was also damaged by the revelation that the shadow treasurer,
Robert Dean, was ineligible to run. Dean's electorate of
Berwick had been abolished and merged into the new electorate of
Gembrook. Dean won Liberal preselection for Gembrook, but failed to update his address after moving to his new electorate. As a result, he was no longer on the electoral roll; Victorian law requires candidates to be registered voters. Treasurer
John Brumby loudly wondered if the Liberals could be trusted to manage Victoria's economy if their shadow treasurer could not manage his own affairs.
This was the last Victorian election where the Legislative Council was elected using
preferential voting in
single-member districts (while each province has two members, they were elected at alternate elections). The ''Constitution (Parliamentary Reform) Act 2003'' abolished the electoral provinces and divided Victoria into eight regions each electing five members using
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...
, with all seats being vacated each election.
Future Premier
Daniel Andrews
Daniel Michael Andrews (born 6 July 1972) is an Australian former politician who served as the 48th premier of Victoria from 2014 to 2023. He held office as the leader of the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 2010 and ...
entered parliament at this election.
Results
Legislative Assembly
Legislative Council

The following voting statistics exclude the two mid-term by-elections held on the same day, at which one seat each was retained by the Liberal and National parties.
Electoral maps
Seats changing hands
* Results for Benalla are based from the
2000 by-election, which Labor won from the Nationals.
* Cranbourne became a notionally Labor seat after the redistribution.
* Members listed in italics did not recontest their seats.
See also
*
Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly, 2002–2006
*
Candidates of the 2002 Victorian state election
Notes
References
* Victorian Electoral Commission
*
{{Government of Victoria
Elections in Victoria (state)
2002 elections in Australia
2002 in Victoria (state)
November 2002 in Australia